"the last word" hash tag, everything from live tweeting during the show, to the stories we're following during the day. "the rachel maddow show" is up next. good evening, rachel. >> good evening, lawrence. thanks a lot for that. thank you at home for staying with us for the next hour. we do need to start with some news that is breaking at this hour. tomorrow morning in japan, which is tonight our time, the japanese nuclear safety commission and the japanese government are expected to hold a news conference to announce that the nuclear reactor disaster at fukushima is now rated a seven on the zero to seven scale of how bad nuclear acdents can be in the world. the only event that ever before rated a seven on that scale is the chernobyl disaster in the former soviet union in 1986. while the japanese nuclear agency says that fukushima has emitted less radioactive than the chernobyl disaster, the fukushima disaster is still ongoing. and it is not ongoing well. the reactor owner reporting a new fire today at the number four reactor at fukushima.

that fire was before the announcement about raising the severity assessment for the overall disaster. that fire, we are now told, has been put out. but, again, we are awaiting a formal announcement from the japanese government that the fukushima disaster is now an international level seven disaster. on the international zero to seven scale, where zero is zero and seven is chernobyl, japan now says fukushima is a seven. we will keep you posted tonight as we learn more. here at home in the united states, all eyes on politics, where no one quite knows how the balance of power will settle out after washington very nearly avoided a government shutdown late on friday night. and in the midst of that ç uncertainty, behold the living definition of political opportunity. republicans have proposed for next year's budget, reducing the tax rate paid by the richest people in this country to its

lowest level since 1931. whoo-hoo! good news for the big guy. if you think the economic inequality of the days of the great depression is something that americans are yearning for, you are -- alone. or you are a republican running for congress. the republican party's budget proposal wants to cut taxes on the richest people in the country by 29%. so take whatever the budget deficit would have been otherwise and make it $2.9 trillion worse over the next ten years. that's what the republican plan would cost, according to tax policy center. where does the political opportunity of this come in? well, in the last nbc news/"wall street journal" poll that asked americans how they would cut the deficit, given a whole menu of options, the most popular thing on that menu, the most popular thing on that list, the thing described as acceptable by 81% of respondents was to low terrify deficit by putting an extra tax on people making more than a million bucks a year. so 81% of americans say

millionaires should pay more in taxes in order to close the deficit. republicans want to cut taxes on millionaires to the tune of about $200,000 per millionaire. that is the definition of political opportunity. the distance between those two things. something profligate and radical and wildly economically reckless that the entire country hates. your ancestors have to have been very, very good people in their lifetimes for you, in your lifetime, to have earned the luck of being the political opponent of the republicans this year. of all of the options for lowering the deficit offered to people in this poll, the most beloved idea was taxingç millionaires. the most hated idea, the idea that people liked the least was the republicans' exact proposal to kill medicare by turning it into a coupon system. so the most popular idea, republicans are doing the opposite. the least popular idea, republicans are embracing. this is political opportunity. will the democrats take it?

don't know. unclear. not promising. wouldn't bet it on it. maybe, though. on friday night, we got this deal to keep the government running, right? when republicans made their initial demand for what they wanted in order to keep the government running, do you remember what that initial demand was? here's "the new york times" headline from february 3rd. "$32 billion in budget cuts proposed." that's what the republicans were demanding. $32 billion in cuts or the government gets it! how did the democrats respond at that time? democratic congressman chris van hollen, who is also responsible for messaging matters on stuff like this, he responded by saying, no freaking way, $32 billion is irresponsible. "the immediate spending cuts proposed today by house republicans will harm the economy and put more people out of work." so not just no, but, no, that is a horrible idea. no, that is bad for the country. but that figure, that $32 billion kicked off the debate, right? would democrats give the republicans the $32 billion in

cuts they were demand? how close would democrats have to get to that $32 billion demand? turns out they gave them all that and then some. >> the agreement trim s $38.5 billion from this year's budget. >> $38.5. not only did democrats give republicans more than they originally asked for, they also stopped saying that what republicans wanted was a bad idea. i mean, chris van hollen was right in economic terms, taking $32 billion out of the demand side of the economy right now while we're still trying to recover from a great recession probably will slow down the economy. it probably will result in fewer jobs. it probably will result in the recovery taking longer and going slower and unemployment staying higher. that's the way this works, economically speaking.ç so even if the democrats felt like they had to be the adults in the room, they had to stop the republicans from shutting the government down, they could have done so while also saying, hey, we didn't really want to do this. what the republicans want is wrong. it's bad for the economy, it's

bad for the country. we had to give them this thing that's bad for the country in order to stop thing even worse that they wanted to do. but it's a bad idea. democrats could have said that. instead, they said this. >> this agreement between democrats and republicans, on behalf of all americans, is on a budget that invests in our future while making the largest annual spending cut in our history. >> i have an enormous labrador. he turns 4 this summer. he's really big. and he's sort of tough looking, but susan and i call him the giant baby, because even though he is a big, tough-looking dog, he whines like a baby. when he wants to go out, he whines. when he wants to come in, he whines. when he wants to eat dinner, he whines. when dinner's over, he whines. and why is that? it's my fault. i hate the sound of him whining so i do what it is that he wants me to do in order to get him to

stop the blessed wl eed whining. and i have thereby trained him to whine in order to get what i want from me. he controls me with his whining, the giant baby. i understand how this happens. we all understand how this happens. in december, in the first big conflict after the 2010 elections, republicans said they were willing to raise taxes on everybody in the country unless rich people got their tax cuts. wahh! they were also willing to kill unemployment benefits. the president did not want those things. so republicans got what they wanted. got those tax cuts for the rich. cannot stand the sound of that whining. donate want to reward it, but, still, can't stand it. and the republicans have just done it again. $32 billion in cuts so the government gets it. when it becomes clear that the democrats are going to roll over and give them that, they then demanded more.ç by friday, it was kill planned parenthood funding or the

government gets pit. and the democratic concessions became even grander and more humiliating. before they had even voted on the deal they had agreed to on friday, john boehner had already written an op-ed in "usa today" proclaiming the republicans were going to take the exact same strategy the next time too, they were going to do the same thing on the debt ceiling vote. they threatened unemployment benefits and raising everybody's taxes before. they threatened shutting down the government this past week. now they are going to threaten a global financial crisis, another one, by letting the united states default on its debt in order to get some other list of things that they want, that they haven't even come up with yet. if you care about not killing unemployment benefits, and not shutting down the government, and not having another global financial catastrophe, how do you win in negotiations like this? i personally cannot abide the sound of my enormous dog crying over his food dish, i just -- i can't. but i haven't tried to turn my weakness into a virtue. i'm not bragging about what a good idea that my dog gets to

decide when he gets fed and when he goes out rather than me deciding it. that is not how the democrats are dealing with think, though. the president is not great at negotiating with republicans. and every confrontation, they prove themselves to be willing to do something that's bad for the country, and in order to prevent that from happening, the president gives them mostly everything they want and then some. they are being rewarded for it every time they do it. democrats on the left right now are having a principled and pretty rollicking fight among themselves on whether or not the president should just let the metaphorical dog whine. where the republicans looked so bad on friday when they were willing to shut down the government in order to de-fund planned parenthood that president obama should have just let them do it, show their colors to the world. should the president have just let unemployment benefits die in order to kill the bush tax cuts for the richest americans. should he have vetoed(aoy health reform bill that didn't have the public option in it? the beltway media is not very interested in what happens on

the left, substantively, so you're probably not reading any interesting mainstream beltway journalism about the fight loechon the left, but it is a fascinating fight. and if the left does decide to take a harder line with president obama, it will be really interesting to see if liberals are capable of dragging the democrats to a harder negotiating position. if that happens, it will be a surprise to everybody in washington, because nobody in the beltway media pays any attention to the left. the more media question, though, for the white house is whether or not they're going to give up on the big argument. whether or not they're going to give up on making the case that the republican ideas about the budget are bad ideas. the republicans have proposed rolling tax rates for the richest people in this country back to where they were in 1931. 1931. we've already got this giant deficit, right? when americans desperately want to tax the rich in order to close the deficit. you going to leave that one hanging right there over the plate and not it? are you going to try to win the argument when you have the

chance on something as easy as this? or are you going to keep making the other sides' points for them. there is a presidential address on the economy on wednesday night. i cannot wait to find out what he will say. joining me now is the washington editor of "the nation" magazine, msnbc contributor, christopher hayes. good to see you, mr. hayes. as always. >> good to see you, miss maddow. i think i'm both a beltway journalist and i care about the left. i'm in the slim part of the venn diagram. >> you are beltway in the sense that our geographically located inside that freeway. but there is a -- i feel like there is this superinteresting fight going on among the democrats and their democratic base. and part of it is whether or not the issues, the economic populist issues of the states are going to become national ç issues, and part of it is whether or not president obama should start being bad cop or start, at least, saying no to the republicans instead of giving in. do you have a sense that these

fights are going to be -- are going to be determinative of what happens in washington? >> i think -- here's what i think. i think there's an asymmetry o zealots. if you look eed at what people wanted in the polling before this deal went through, a majority of democrats polled and a majority of independents wanted a compromise to avoid a government shutdown, even if it means giving up things you want, something like that. and the majority of republicans wanted a shutdown. and that was true of the representatives they sent to congress and everyone knew that. so when boehner was negotiating, he was negotiating with the added leverage of the fact that he had a caucus that was willing to shut it down and that caucus was supported by a base that wanted to see the government shut down. in the polling out today, two-thirds of democrats and two-thirds of independents approve of the deal struck on friday, whereas the republicans

who ate everyone else's cake, they're divided on it because they didn't get enough. so i think it comes down to where actually people's opinions are in the two camps. >> well, what -- could the democratic base, could the liberals among the democratic party's base provide that same kind of leverage to president obama? could they say to him, listen, very publicly, we are not going to accept it if you let the bush tax cuts go again, or if you touch a hair on medicare's head, and that would allow the president to say, listen, it's these crazy liberals over here. i just can't go anywhere on medicare. >> yeah. i think that is where the force sort of has to come. and it has to come, if liberals do care about this, making that demand felt and member, this doesn't all happen in the pnegotiations in the two weeks. there is precedent here in the dreaded primary that every republican member of the house and the senate is terrified of. a tea party primary. so they have already been kind of kept in check prospectively

by the round of primaries that happened in 2010. so you can donate th't do this . this is a long-standing thing that's built up that has ceded more and more power to the ultraconservative, ultrareactionary right wing of the party. that's something you can take place on the liberal side, but it takes time. it's not an instant thing. you can't show up tomorrow and say, now we're going to break you, because that threat has to be credible. >> what do you think is going to happen on wednesday night when the president gives this speech on the economy? they were priming the pump this weekend, trying to get people used to the idea that he's going to talk about medicare and medicaid, and when people do that in cases like this, they're not usually just talking about defending it from the people who want to cut it, they are talking about their own cuts. >> yes. so i'm terrified of that, frankly. i mean, i think everyone is on tenterhooks about what that's going to look like. the austerity argument have been

concede conce conceded. the president is shooting to us a austerity. it's going to be the moderate version of whatever nuttiness paul ryan throws out there. but that moves the center of this debate way over to the right. we have unbelievable amounts of physical and human resources lying fallow, rotting away, wasting in this country with almost 9% unemployment, with houses in foreclosure. all of this just sitting there, idle. not doing anything. not living up to its productive capacity. and we're not having a discussion about how we get that moving again. we're having a discussion about how we cut. and frankly, it's madness. it's madness for the recovery and it's madness for what it really means for real people's lives at the bottom of the social pyramid, where representation is the thinnest. >> and it is al political mad tons take something like the other side wants to kill medicare and to walk away from that or to joinç them on that side rather than using it as a cudgel. chris hayes, washington editor

of "the nation" magazine, msnbc contributor. when you were guest hosting for ed and handled up a that breaking news, i was riveted, you did a great job. >> thank you, rachel. thank you very much. there are lots of reasons to live in washington, d.c., one of them being that you might see chris hayes on the street. but having your political will represented in the federal government is not one of the reasons it is a good reason to live in d.c. president obama gave away the rights of d.c. citizens to john boehner last week and he reportedly said as he was doing it that he didn't like the fact that he was doing it. think how the citizens of d.c. felt. the president, the republicans' radical conservatives, that is also coming up. stay with us. >> announcer: this past year alone there's been a 67% spike in companies embracing the cloud-- big clouds, small ones, public, private, even hybrid. your data and apps must move easily and securely to reach many clouds, not just one.

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one more thing to report about that budget deal that republicans and democrats came to on friday night to avoid a shutdown of the federal government. even as democrats gave republicans more than they had initially asked for, as democrats met republicans not just halfway, not just all the way, but then some, the one thing democrats wanted to make sure their base knew they were standing firm on, the one place where democrats said, nope, no way, no how, never, nah-uh, we will not compromise was on women's health. harry reid stood on the floor and made the case for his daughters and his granddaughters and how importantly he believed it was for them and women all over the country to be able to

go and get medicare. how does a stand like this read to the base? democrats stood up for abortion rights. now here's the giant neon asterisk on that message. one of the things they did let republicans do was they let them bigfoot abortion rights in the district of columbia, in the city of washington, d.c. the city ultimately legally ruled by congress, despite having no voting power in congress. republicans for all of their talk about limiting the power of the federal government and local decision making and all of that, as part of this deal they agreed to on friday night, republicans are reaching into the city government of d.c. as the federal government and blocking the city from spending its own local city funds on abortion services for poor women in d.c. not federal funds, local funds, the republicans are stopping "fáhem from spending their own money where they want to spend it. republicans had demanded the defunding of planned parenthood nationwide, democrats stopped that, but d.c. was thrown under the bus once again.

>> by the way, the only other rider in this resolution is that the district of columbia may not spend its own local taxpayer-raised funds on abortions for its own low-income women. it's time the district of columbia to tell the congress to go straight to hell. the district residents are being treated covetous of the congress of the united states and we're absolutely outraged. >> that was eleanor holmes norton speaking passionately, she is not allowed to vote. this is the footage we got today of the protest taking place over these issues at the united states senate. these are hundreds of washington, d.c. residents, including city officials, and including the mayor of washington, d.c., who got arrested in protest of what the federal government just did to the city once again. we will be right back.

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nearly two years after he was murdered, the associated press has obtained the fbi files that detailed the myriad threats to the life of witchta doctor george tiller in the years before an anti-abortion extremist finally killed him in 2009. according to the associated press, the documents mostly cover cases that were not prosecuted or cases where federal investigators couldn't identify suspects. they include claims in november 1996 that an anti-abortion activist told an inmate at a women's prison in topeka that he planned to kill tiller.

a 1994 incident in which a grenade was left outside tiller's apartment. an anti-hoax letter sent in 2002. and also a woman with history of threatening dr. tiller who planned to finish the job on the doctor. we knew that his clinic was bombed in 1996, we knew that thousands of protesters converged on his clinic in 1991 to physically blockade his entrance. we know that dr. tiller was shot in both arm hs in 1993, and that he was murdered, gunned down in his church in 2009 by the anti-abortion extremist, scott roeder. but now we know when there wasn't actual violence in dr. tiller's life, there were threats of violence, and lots of them. because apparently if you are a doctor and you want to provide this legal, supposedly constitutionally protected service to women in this country, this is the kind of life you're forced to have. a life of violence or threats of violence or both. anti-abortion activistsç used

circulate "wanted" posters of dr. tiller. it's believed this one went around just before he was shot, the first time in 1993. we're told that these "wanted" posters targeting doctors in north carolina started circulating there just before dr. tiller was murdered in 2009. one of the doctors featured in these posters told us he believed the poster was a call for his murder. we have another wanted style poster to report on tonight. no one has been able to provide abortion services in witchta since dr. tiller was murdered almost two years ago, but this woman is trying. she is training to become an abortion provider. she's looking for a new office in witchta. she has not actually started providing abortion services yet, but this poster targeting dr. mean's office manager has already been circulating in the neighborhood where this woman lives. it has a picture, a home phone number, and a home address for the officer manager. it instructs people to contact her and ask her to stop participating in the violent destruction of little baby boys and girls for a buck.

we've talked on the show about the threats and intimidation dr. means herself is facing. one threat we specifically called out back in january was this letter, allegedly from an anti-abortion activist named angel diller. it is addressed to dr. means. it reads in part, "if dr. tiller could speak from hell, he would tell you what a soulless existence you're purposefully considering all in the name of greed. thousands of people are already looking into your background, not just from witchta but from all over the u.s., they'll no your habits and routines. they know where your friends live. you'll be checking under your car every day. people will be picketing your home, your office, you will come under greater scrutiny than you've ever known, legally and professionally. we will not let this abomination continue without doing everything we can to stop it. now the justice department has filed a lawsuitç against the alleged author of that letter. the lawsuit is for writing that letter. charging that it was meant to

intimidate dr. means. in the summer of twine, just over a month after dr. tiller's murder, angel dillard, the alleged author of that letter, told the associated press that since scott roeder was arrested for killing dr. tiller, she and her husband have exchanged several letters with mr. roeder and they have spoken to him by phone and that she planned to visit him in jail. you may recall that after shelley shannon shot dr. tiller the first time in 1993, investigators dug up a booklet in her backyard. "the army of god manual." the group calling itself army of god believes that killing abortion providers is justifiable homicide. it promotes that idea. when shelley shannon went to prison for shooting dr. tiller and for other clinic attacks, scott roeder visited her in prison. according to our next guest's reporting, during those visits, scott roeder came to consider himself to be a member of these groups, the army of god. the army of god published

several editions on this manual, how to kill abortion providers. members also signed on to a defensive action statement, defending people who had killed abortion providers and pledging themselves to the same tactics. the army of god is out there. it is a group way, way, way on the violent fringes of the anti-abortion movement. or, at least it was. at the end of his term as attorney general of the great state of kansas, phil klein appointed a special prosecutor to investigator george tiller. he was a man who had not just protested dr. tiller's clinic in 1991, according to our next guest's new book, for the tenth anniversary of those protests in 2001, he hosted at his home one of the army of god guys, who had signed that defensiveç action statement proclaiming that murdering abortion doctors was justified and who called shelley shannon a hero for her 1993 attempted murder of dr. tiller. and suddenly law enforcement in

the state of kansas is one degree of separation from the fringiest of the fringe, the violent fringe. and that is how extremism is mainstreamed. we almost just had the entire federal government shut down over republicans' crusade to defund planned parenthood. >> are you willing to hold up this entire budget over defunding planned parenthood? >> well, of course i am. >> this weekend, would-be republican presidential candidate newt gingrich spoke at an event at liberty university where he was co-billed alongside a panel discussion called "abortion: ending the holocaust." this is the way you construct a national mainstream republican candidacy now. you stand beside abortion as the holocaust events, you advocate shutting down the federal government rather than allowing funding for pap smears at planned parenthood. that's the republican mainstream and you want to be hard-core in your anti-abortion views, where does the mainstream stop and the

fringe begin anymore? where is the line? joining us now for the interview tonight is steven singulair. he is author of the new book "the witchta divide: the murder of dr. george tiller and the battle over abortion." mr. singulair, i have been looking forward to meeting you for a long time. thanks for coming in. >> thanks for having me. >> you write about the fight over abortion in this country as not just a fight, not just a debate, but you describe it as a civil war. why do you choose that term? >> well, i think that it's just entered so many lives and so many families. in this particular book, i took two families and wanted to show how that war had played out in the lives of the tiller family and the lives of the scott roeder family. and i didn't want to just write a diatribe about abortion, but i wanted to tell a story about it and how this kind of hateful rhetoric or this kind of demonization filters down into individual lives. neither one of these men intended to be involved in this war, or any kind ofç combat li

this. dr. tiller was going to be a dermatologist, that was his plan, but his father died in the early 1970s and he took over his office after a while and these women came in and told their stories, and he learned that his father had been performing illegal abortions or abortions under the table with these women for many, many years. and they told him their stories and they told him what a good doctor he was and they told him how they needed this service and what a good thing it was to have in witchta so women could be safe and healthy in these procedures. and eventually, it sunk in to him. and he decided to follow in his father's footsteps. roe v. wade had already been passed, it was a legal service, and he took it over and he provided this service for many, many women and they were very grateful for it. when he was put on trial in 2009, about two months before he was killed, the state of kansas tried to bring charges against him, and what is called an inquisition, i think it's a wonderful word to use in the 21st century. i thought that was the 15th or

16th century, but we've brought it back into this time so they could finally get him in court and try him and use due process. and the citizens of witchta acquitted him of 19 charges in 25 minutes. and after it was over, they went to the judge and they said, we would like to express an opinion to him or our feelings to him after the verdict, which was highly unusual in any criminal case. and they wrote a letter and said, thank you for doing this for the city of witchta. this is a man who had been shot and bombed and everything else. so he had carried on this tradition and he had provided this service. so that's his story. that's one part of the book. he was sucked into this war. he never wanted to be demonized or targeted or hated or any of that. he just wanted to be a physician practicing his trade. scott roeder was going to be a salesman or, you know, work in that area, but he started -- he got connected with the anti-tax movement. that's how he was sucked into all this. and that eventually led to, you know, getting into anti-abortion

groups and other groups. he became more and moreç fanatical in that. so it's really the story of how these two families were trapped in this war. >> one of the things that i found fascinating, i feel like i've read a lot about this story, we've done a lot of reporting about this, but your reporting specifically on wear scott roeder sort of came from, and i think what you learned by covering so many other different types of extremists in your career as an author and a journalist was some of the most fascinating stuff. do you mind if we take a quick break and come back and talk about that stuff? >> sure. >> steven singular is our guest. the book is called "the witchta divide." we'll be right back. ttd# 1-800-0

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in 1984, a man named alan berg, a radio talk show host in denver, he was jewish, in 1984 he was murdered, he was shot in his driveway. his murder was planned and carried out by a neo nazi group called "the order." he wrote a book about that ç murder. the book was called "talked to death." it was stephen singular's first

book. his latest book 25 years later is about the assassination of dr. george tiller by scott roeder in 2009. mr. singular says he thinks the book about dr. tiller is a sequel of sorts to the book about alan berg's murder. he says, "the overwhelming difference in the united states between 1984 when alan berg was shot in an act of domestic terrorism and 2009 was that extremism was no longer extreme. the sense of victimization that had once fueled the order was now broadcast 24 hours a day on talk radio, on cable television, and encouraged in countless other respectable venues." stephen, you talk a lot in this book about the mainstreaming of what used to be fringe ideas. do you see parallels in the motivation of these different fringe fir figures who committe these two murder s 25 years apart?

>> there's no question about it. scott roeder was very familiar with the turner diaries, which was the novel that the order used to carry out their 240 crimes that they committed in 1983 and 1984. this was a violently anti-semitic fantasy novel that was sold at gun shows. timothy mcveigh was involved in that as well. there's a thread that runs through the whole story. berg was familiar with it, mcveigh was very familiar with it, he blew up a building at 9:00 in the morning, which was a scene in the novel. and roeder traveled in some of the same circles and was around the same literature. they also have this strange idea that roeder did that he was one of the actual jews in the old testament. i mean, this is one of the most unusual ideas that runs through this whole mentality. that they are the actual chosen people, people of the old testament. roeder bought into that. and it's one of these streams

that runs through the wholeç thing. and apparently when you get to that level, all you have to obey is god's law, not man's law. that's always the rationalization for this kind of violence. >> that man's law is in effect. obedience to man's law would actually be a sin. it would be discounting your own devine inspiration and instruction, right? >> more it is, it just overrides the rule of law, which is one of the foundations of our society. in the state of kansas, you have someone like phil klein, the attorney general, the highest elected official in the state. using the power of law to go after dr. tiller in every possible way you can, when this is a legal activity being carried out, he uses the resources of the state, uses the people of the state, he takes women's medical records and hides them and scurries them around the state and does whatever he wants with them, after a judge has told him he cannot do that. he's bending the law and that's the point of the whole book. in the order, you have nine guys out in the woods who are fanatic and pretty obviously crazy and have no level of success in our society.

now you have the head legal official in kansas going after people in a similar way. i mean, the demonization, the hatred and the whole thing, it's gone from the fringes into the mainstream. and there are consequences for that, because while those people are not violent themselves, that stuff filters down, and the other parallel in the berg ka is and the tiller case is it affects people who are not emotionally stable. we see this over and over again. the guy who killed berg was not emotionally stable. scott roeder was diagnosed with schizophrenia as a teenager. the guy who shoots gabriel giffords, the same thing. so you need to have a sense of responsibility when you're doing this kind of demonization. when you're saying tiller the killer over and over again, you're not just saying it to two people who might be somewhat stable. you're saying it to a lot of other people. that filters down and that has

consequences. >> is it important that the justice department has opened an investigation into whether or not scott roeder acted alone? >> i think it's extremely important. they tried to do thisç in the 80s. people wanted them to carry out an investigation, when clinics were being bombed and tiller's clinic was being bombed. they didn't want to do it. they talked about it in the '90s, they didn't want to do it. and finally now there is a grand jury in kansas city saying, what are the connections? who financed roeder? were there other sources of revenue that supported him? we know that he was involved financially with operation rescue. but after these events happened, people always say, no, we don't know who he was, we don't know anything about him. that's factually untrue. the federal government needs to look into that to see what the roots and branches and if other people should be indicted. >> stephen singular is author of the book "the witchta divide," the book comes out tomorrow. i really appreciate you being here the night before it's released. and i have to say, just as somebody who's done a lot of reporting on this, you both

deepened and really widened the scope of what we know about this murder in a way that i think is going to be really helpful to understanding its impact. so i think it's a really service to the country. thanks for having done that. >> thank you. to his great credit, michael brumwich, the man in charge of issuing deepwater oil permits in the gulf of mexico agreed to appear on our show. the results of him appearing here, however, were not reassuring. >> one of the things they found was that an oil rig worker was four times more likely to be killed working in u.s. waters than in european waters. even though many of the same companies operate in both areas. do you have any explanation for that? >> do i have any explanation for what? for the higher incidence of fatalities here? >> yeah. even for -- >> no. no, i don't. >> "no, i don't." that's it? oh, i wish that was it. please stay with us. we'll be right back. rethink ho. in here, machines tell factories when they're thirsty.

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today the clawing, keening, desperation ballad that is mitt romney's permanent campaign for president dragged itself upright once again and declared itself alive! today is the five-year anniversary of mitt romney's massachusetts state health reform law. now that republicans hate healtç reform, mr. romney heroically

disowns that law anytime anyone mentions it. so as massachusetts democrats celebrated their state's five-year health reform anniversary today with a thank you, mitt romney, celebration, which they knew would drive him nuts, mr. romney tried to create a distraction, a distraction from own awkward health reform regret and made a surprise announcement he is running for president this year. yeah, surprise. mitt romney running for president again. he made the announcement by tweet today the biggest impact seeming to have been the ooh ah reaction to his new mitt romney logo. the huffington post's capitol hill correspondent noting that if you turned the logo on its side it would make a good logo for toothpaste. presumably aqua fresh. our own rachel maddow show intern noting that if you greened up mr. romney's new logo it is about exactly the same as the logo of the girl scouts of america which could have the interesting subliminal effect of making people crave cookies

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we've been covering a story for a few weeks now that i think is very important. it's about whether it is really safe to drill again for oil in the gulf of mexico now that the government is allowing it again.

call us obsessive, nerdy, obsessive and nerdy. i cop to both. when the government posts a report that says the safety equipment for deep water drilling is flawed by design, that our back-up plan is unreliable even when we execute it perfectly, and then the government keeps handing out new drilling permits to people using that technology, one permit every four days, and when we know what happens when that technology goes wrong, given all of that it has seemed worth it to us, worth it to me at least to swim upstream on this one, to cover the story of the flawed blowout preventers even though nobody else in national print or tv news seems to care much about it yet. we swim upstream by nature here and sometimes i'm glad we do. thursday night finally after weeks of reporting and asking for comment from the federal agency that hands out the oil permits we finally got an interview with the agency director. his name is michael brumwich and while it is worth noting this was a tense and at times even frustrating interview, we really did learn a bunch which is why i

think it's worth it to goç bac to it for a second right now. we got new information from mr. brumwich about deep water drilling about the government's position on the safety of it, how that is changing and just the nature of who is in charge of it. the first thing i'd say we learned is the guy the government has in charge of permits for drilling does not think the report about blowout preventers being so flawed is any big deal. he says his agency has known for years that the darned thing shouldn't be counted on, that they don't always work. bp's disaster he said is just the latest proof and the report about it was really no great revelation. >> added some new information to the store house of knowledge we had but not a lot and it certainly didn't change the way we were thinking about whether things had changed sufficiently so that we could feel comfortable granting deep water drilling permits. >> it certainly didn't change the way we were thinking. in fact, mr. brumwich is superior at the department of

interior ken salazar said last week the standards blowout preventers have to meet to get your drilling permit are going to be toughened so the government is changing its thinking and does think the permits or standards are too lax now given this report on the blowout preventers. they have just decided between now and the time the new standards can be put in place they'll keep handing out permits under the old standard that they know is too lax. under that old standard that they know is too lax. what else did we learn in our conversation is just how tolerant we are expected to be of a giant mess. bp's disaster well poured oil into the gulf of mexico for 87 days, oil by the thousands of barrels, by the millions. in all of the press releases for the new drilling permits now even in the president's own big energy speech about this issue much is being made of just how tough the new standards are for containment, for containing a blown out well. >> if you're going to drill in deep water, you've got toç pro

before you start drilling that you can actually contain an under water spill. >> thursday night michael brumwich confirmed for us that companies are getting new drilling permits when their proof that they can contain an under water spill is that they have a contract with the company that says it can contain the spill in 17 days. this, ladies and gentlemen, is the gulf of mexico 17 days into the bp oil disaster the day oil washed ashore on the islands. >> you're right. 17 days is not fabulous. but 17 days is a lot better than 87 days. >> wow. wow. and that's the new standard. mr. brumwich says things are better now with containment systems that can stop a blowout in 17 days. not fabulous in his words he says but better. one last thing. i have not played a ton of tape from this thursday's interview because it did keep me up a couple nights. it will continue to i imagine especially this part where i asked michael brumwich about the safety of the workers on our deep water rigs here in america.

11 people died that first night of the bp disaster in the gulf of mexico when bp's well blew up. 11 people who shipped out to work on that rig and never came home. the president's oil spill commission released a report on the bp disaster and found an oil rig worker was four times more likely to be killed working in u.s. waters than in european waters even though many of the same companies operate in both areas. do you have any explanation for that? >> do i have any explaination for what, the higher incidence of fatalities? >> yeah. >> no. no i don't. >> and that hasn't been figured out. >> no. >> no. last may in the middle of bp's disaster the president stopped all drilling in the gulf of mexico until we could figure out what went wrong and how to drill more safely. when the president declared that drilling could begin again, a new guy was put in charge of deciding who would get a permit and who wouldn't. this is the guy. michael brumwich. this is what he thinks. this is how he thinks. this is how he is approaching this issue.